Jersey City
Jersey City, New Jersey is 2,000 feet from the Statue of Liberty and is an integral part of the Port of New York and New Jersey. The city became a home to industry in the 1800s, and after World War I, the city also began to see an infusion of immigrants of Italian, Irish, and German ethnicity who were looking for the work that industry could provide. 1 The city’s name occurs within the title of Wallace Stevens’ poem “Loneliness in Jersey City,” published in 1942. The poem reflects the author’s perception of an urban community made barren because of industrialization. Nevertheless, the city offers refuge and celebratory grounds for immigrants, particularly for the Poles who in their native land were subjected to the horrors of the ongoing power struggles between the German and Russian forces that persisted through World War II. 2 Unfortunately, a potentially positive message is conveyed derogatorily in the following lines: Except Polacks that pass in their motors And Play concertinas all night. They think that things are all right . . .. (15-17) 3 While Stevens references the Poles as Polacks, a label considered to be an ethnic slur after the late 19th century, 4 Stevens’ choice of words supports his later anxiety in “The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words,” published in his collection of essays The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination (1951). Stevens writes "of a new world so uncertain that one . . . could not tell whether it was to be all-English, all-German, all-Russian, all-Japanese, or all-American . . .. And for more than ten years, the consciousness of the world has concentrated on events which have made the ordinary movement of life seem to be the movement of people in the interval of a storm." 5 The reader can quickly move from the essay back to “Loneliness in Jersey City” and continue Stevens’ thought process with the lines “well, the gods grow out of the weather, / The people grow out of the weather . . . (2-3), and conclude his thoughts with “The steeples are empty and so are the people, / There’s nothing whatever to see . . .” (13-14). 6 The emptiness of the urban landscape, where nature meets brick and mortar, seems to provide a viable, creative environment only for the people who have immigrated to the United States during Stevens' lifetime. The poem, then, reflects a fear for the spiritual survival of the people with historical and cultural ties to a city, and in this case, Jersey City, that regresses under the guise of progress. Notes 1. Jersey City 2. History of Poland during World War I 3. Stevens in Kermode and Richardson 191. 4. Polack 5. Stevens in Kermode and Richardson 655. 6. Stevens in Kermode and Richardson 191. References History of Poland during World War I Jersey City Kermode, Frank, and Joan Richardson, eds. Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose. New York: Library of America, 1997. Print. Polack Stevens, Wallace. "Loneliness in Jersey City." Kermode and Richardson 191. Stevens, Wallace. "The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words." Kermode and Richardson 655.